Does Mode Matter For Modeling Political Choice? Evidence From the 2005 British Election Study

Harold D. Clarke and Marianne C. Stewart School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75083 e-mail: hclarke{at}utdallas.edu e-mail: mstewart{at}utdallas.edu Paul Whiteley Department of Government, University of Essex, Colchester, England CO4 3SQ e-mail: whiteley{at}essex.ac.uk e-mail: sanders{at}essex.ac.uk (Corresponding author) Although political scientists have begun to investigate theproperties of Internet surveys, much remains to be learned aboutthe utility of the Internet mode for conducting major surveyresearch projects such as national election studies. This paperaddresses this topic by presenting the results of an extensivesurvey comparison experiment conducted as part of the 2005 BritishElection Study. Analyses show statistically significant, butgenerally small, differences in distributions of key explanatoryvariables in models of turnout and party choice. Estimatingmodel parameters reveals that there are few statistically significantdifferences between coefficients generated using the in-personand Internet data, and the relative explanatory power of rivalmodels is virtually identical for the two types of data. Ingeneral, the in-person and Internet data tell very similar storiesabout what matters for turnout and party preference in Britain.Determining if similar findings obtain in other countries shouldhave high priority on the research agenda for national electionstudies. Authors' note: We thank the U.K. Economics and Social ResearchCouncil (ESRC) and Gary Williams, Senior Science Manager atthe ESRC, for their generous support of, and interest in, thisproject. We also thank the editor and anonymous reviewers forhelpful comments and suggestions.     

How reliable is cloudsourcing? A review of articles in the technical media 2005–11

A review of articles in the technical media between 2005 and 3Q 2011 disclosed reports on 49 outages involving 20 cloudsourcing providers. Several of these were major events. Many caused difficulties for user-organisations’ staff. Some caused lengthy suspension of services by user-organisations to their customers. A number of them involved irretrievable loss of data. Many user-organisations have failed to risk-assess their use of cloudsourcing, and are exposing their businesses to unmanaged risks.     

Assessing student group work: is there a right way to do it?

Many law courses include at least some elements of group work within compulsory or optional modules. The benefits of group work include at least four of the seven “Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education”.¹ In addition, employers consistently ask for good team-working skills, evidence of which is often provided by reference to group projects at university. Previous research by the authors² confirms other reports in the literature that many students find group work difficult, and particularly resent other students “freeloading” from their work.³ They also experience frustration at non-participation by other students and not being able to choose their team mates. This resentment can be exacerbated if all students receive the same mark for the finished project regardless of input. In this article, the authors reflect upon our experiences of setting and grading group work in our own courses and institutions. We will consider different assessment approaches, including peer assessment,⁴ lecturer assessment, student participation – enhancing student understanding of assessment criteria,⁵ a mixture of peer and lecturer assessment, assessment of group work as part of a portfolio,⁶ and non-assessed group work feeding into individual assessments.     

Book reviews

Karl‐Eugen Wädekin, Sozialistische Agrarpolitik in Osteuropa. II. Entwicklung und Probleme. 1960–1976. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1978. 338 pp. DM62.

Peter Vanneman, The Supreme Soviet: Politics and the Legislative Process in the Soviet Political System. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1977. xii + 256 pp. $11.75.

I. S. Koropeckyj (ed.). The Ukraine within the USSR: An Economic Balance Sheet. New York: Praeger Publishers, and London: Martin Robertson, 1977. xxi +316 pp. £14.85.

Dorothy Atkinson, Alexander Dallin, Gail Warshofsky Lapidus (eds.), Women in Russia. Hassocks, Sussex: Harvester Press, 1978. viii+410 pp. £11.50.

J. Wilczynski, Comparative Monetary Economics. London: Macmillan, 1978. x + 270 pp. £12.00.

David Turnock, Eastern Europe Studies in Industrial Geography. Kent: Dawson Publishing/Westview Press, 1978. xi+273 pp. £9.50.

Edward Allworth (ed.), Nationality Group Survival in Multi‐Ethnic States: Shifting Support Patterns in the Soviet Baltic Region. New York: Praeger Publishers, and London: Martin Robertson, 1977. xiv + 299 pp. £14.40.

Robert Conquest, Kolyma—the Arctic Death Camps. London: Macmillan, 1978. 256 pp. £6.95.

Vladimir G. Treml (ed.), Studies in Soviet Input‐Output Analysis. New York: Praeger Publishers, and London: Martin Robertson, 1977. xx + 448 pp.

Richard Hennessy, The Agrarian Question in Russia 1905–1907. The Inception of the Stolypin Reform. (Marburger Abhandlungen zur Geschichte und Kultur Osteuropas, Band 16.) Giessen: Wilhelm Schmitz Verlag, 1977. 203 pp.     

Guest editors’ introduction: Active citizenship and social accountability

By active citizenship, we [Oxfam] mean that combination of rights and obligations that link individuals to the state, including paying taxes, obeying laws, and exercising the full range of political, civil, and social rights. Active citizens use those rights to improve the quality of political or civic life, through involvement in the formal economy or formal politics, or through the sort of collective action that historically has allowed poor and excluded groups to make their voices heard. [… .]

At an individual level, active citizenship means developing self-confidence and overcoming the insidious way in which the condition of being relatively powerless can become internalised. In relation to other people, it means developing the ability to negotiate and influence decisions. And when empowered individuals work together, it means involvement in collective action, be it at the neighbourhood level, or more broadly. Ultimately, active citizenship means engaging with the political system to build an effective state, and assuming some degree of responsibility for the public domain.

(Green 2008 Green, D. 2008. From Poverty to Power: How Active Citizens and Effective States can Change the World, Oxford: Oxfam International.  [Google Scholar]: 12, 19)